Downtown

I feel like this was an under-rated show and I was pretty excited to see it during its short run on TV.  Being a MTV show, it took a kind of snapshot of life in a big city just post-grad, all of which I had no way of relating to at my age then. That being said, I really enjoyed the window into the Gen X city life and wish the show had gone on a little longer.

Egoraptor

This one falls deep into the 'immature' category, yet I wouldn't ever classify it as a 'guilty' pleasure. If you take an 8 year old's videogame mind and animated into a off the walls non-sequiter youtube short, you get Egoraptor.  Arin Hanson is his real name, and he has been animating flash videos on Newgrounds since before the advent or Youtube.  The shorts and animation style are very well done and can be summed up in one word: exaggerated. I can see this one being a hit or miss with people. Either you think it's stupid and don't understand why people love it, or you love how stupid it is and don't need to understand it. Would anybody like some pound cake?

Mummies Alive!

This is one of those shows that is so obscure and forgotten by most, but still resonates with me to this day. I'm going to be honest, I don't remember any of the episode plots from the show, and had to go back to watch an episode to even remember why I liked it so much.  To my surprise, I was genuinely impressed by the art and animation for it's time.  Despite that, the show is still a run-of-the mill action cartoon with a neat concept. For those unaware, the story follows three mummies who are woken up in a modern day city to protect their pharaoh from the forces of evil. They do this by powering up into their battle suits which (although it looked cool) would eat up a good chunk of the screen time.  Still, a bit of nostalgia for anyone who remembers it.

Samurai Pizza Cats

It was late at night when YTV would play re-runs of this show. I was, and still am a night owl, so I'd be up at 1-2am in the summer even when I was 13. The people who dubbed the show into English took the liberty of writing and cramming as many puns and awful jokes as they could which made the show really annoying at times.  The voice-over guy was an odd choice and I could swear that he'd break out into "Rock Lobster" at any moment. That being said, the character design and setting really captured my imagination and it was the first time I saw a "Japanamation" (as they called it) televised on American TV. I have since seen a bit of the Japanese version called Kyatto Ninden Teyandee and probably would have liked a straight translation dub or subbed version better as a kid.  Still, if you've ever seen the English version, I'm sure you could recite the intro chorus... you're doing it in your head right now!

Beast Wars

This may seem strange to anyone who didn't grow up in Canada, but Beast Wars was called Beasties here. Weird right? I wasn't into the Transformers cartoons, I had missed it by a few years. I saw the toys and understood the appeal, but it was never for me. Beasties was one I would end up watching years later, and I thought it was pretty good. At the time the CGI was pretty decent and I remember I'd watch it pretty much everyday afterschool.